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polamalubeast
04-13-2016, 10:55 AM
It was part of his scouting report coming out of college that Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had a big arm. Given the fact that his size often finds him in a situation in which he is larger than those trying to tackle him, that would indeed stand to reason.

But a strong arm and an accurate deep pass are not synonymous, and the deep ball has not always been a strength for Roethlisberger, at least not on a year-to-year basis, with natural fluctuations based on the personnel. It is, however, an area that has been trending upward in recent years, demonstrating a steady incline in completion percentage over the course of the past four seasons.

Pro Football Focus, in fact, has Roethlisberger completing over 50 percent of his deep targets from a year ago, an improvement of around eight points from the year prior, which was an improvement of about six points from 2013, and so on.

It would stand to reason that, with Martavis Bryant, his primary deep threat, suspended for the duration of the 2016 season, Roethlisberger’s completion percentage on deep throws could be in line to take a hit as a result. With that in mind, it would be useful, of course, to take a look at the actual numbers and see what they have to say.

Including plays negated by penalty, our logs show Roethlisberger targeting Bryant 96 times overall from any distance. Of those targets, 29 of them were on passes thrown at least 15 yards down the field. Bryant caught 12 of those passes, while two of the incompletions drew defensive pass interference flags.


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